A Job For Mummies
by TheNextFolchart
Summary: Narcissa's heart melts slightly as she watches how good her husband is with their son. (Without warning, the nausea peaks.) / Cliffhanger ending alert! Don't bother asking for a sequel, you're not going to get one ;)


**A Job For Mummies**

* * *

All Narcissa Malfoy wants is for her son to leave her alone to feel sick in peace.

"Mummy," five-year-old Draco whines as he tugs on the duvet in which she's shrouded herself. "I want breakfast."

"Mummy doesn't feel well," Narcissa says as kindly as she can. There is a churning in her stomach, as if someone has turned her insides to sludge, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the nausea. "Where's Daddy?"

"I dunno." Draco tugs at her duvet again, and Narcissa opens her eyes. "Let's go find him!"

"Go without me. Tell him to fix you your breakfast."

Draco lets out a huff of air that blows his fine blond bangs off his forehead. "Daddy never fixes breakfast," he says. "That's a job for _mummies_."

In spite of the pounding in her skull and the roiling in her stomach, Narcissa manages a smile. She reaches out of her duvet cocoon to tap her son's pale nose. "Daddy's quite good at breakfast," she says. "He used to bring me breakfast in bed."

Draco's eyes widen. "In _bed_? I've _never_ eaten in bed!"

"It's messy." Narcissa struggles to sit up. "Too messy for little boys who spill crumbs down their fronts."

Draco tries to look indignant. "I'm not a little boy."

"No." She reaches out again to stroke Draco's hair. "You're a big boy, aren't you." Something inside of her pangs at the statement; Draco was never supposed to have gotten big.

With a little hop, Draco hoists himself onto the bed and wriggles around until he's nestled up against her beneath the duvet. "Can we have breakfast in bed?" he asks. "Just this once."

Narcissa can't deny that face. "Just this once," she says. "And only if you're the one who goes to find Daddy."

Draco's face splits into a wide grin. "Okay!"

His joy is contagious, and as he's slithers out of her bed she leans down and pulls him back in for a long hug. "Tell him I want pancakes," she says, and Draco giggles and says he will.

As her son toddles away in his snake-patterned socks, Narcissa releases a slow breath and lets her gaze drift toward her bureau. Hidden in the top drawer is a small box she hasn't opened since before Draco was born, a box she hasn't even _thought_ about in six years, and she swallows hard at the thought of opening it now.

She clenches her jaw against another wave of nausea. It's not the worst pain she's ever felt—that award belongs to the cruciatus curse her sister inflicted upon her when she was twelve, and second prize goes to her seventeen hours of labor with Draco—but it's familiar, and that's what scares her.

"Mummy and I are having breakfast in bed," she hears Draco prattle from the kitchen downstairs. His high-pitched voice carries all the way up into her room; her husband responds, but his voice is too low for her to make out any words. The footsteps on the stairs a moment later offer a warning before Lucius and Draco burst into the bedroom.

"Still in bed," Lucius says without preamble.

For a moment Narcissa thinks he's angry, but when a smirk unfurls across his regal face she realizes he's teasing her. "What do you want?" she says, but she's matching his smirk with one of her own. "I have a headache, go away!"

"A headache?" Lucius repeats, and this time she picks up on the lightness in his voice. "That sounds serious. Could be a dangerous case of . . . laziness."

Narcissa rolls her eyes. "It's nothing that can't be cured by a bit of breakfast in bed."

Draco nods once, a solemn expression on his face. "We're hungry," he says to his father. "Mummy wants pancakes."

Narcissa follows up with an exaggerated nod of her own, and Lucius' smirk falters into a genuine smile. "Breakfast in bed sounds delicious," he says, crossing the room and sinking down onto the mattress. "Thank you for offering. I'd like bacon and eggs, Draco."

"No!" Draco cries, racing after Lucius and tugging at his robes. " _You_ have to make it."

"Me?" Lucius raises his eyebrows and slaps a hand against his chest. "Didn't you hear? I have a headache! Go away!"

"It's _Mummy_ who has a headache," Draco says, but he's laughing, and so is Lucius, and Narcissa's heart melts slightly as she watches how good her husband is with their son.

Without warning, the nausea peaks. "Move," she grunts, rolling out of bed and lurching for the bathroom adjoined to the bedroom. She barely makes it to the toilet before the contents of her stomach are pouring out through her mouth.

"Mummy?" she hears Draco ask as she clutches the toilet seat, but then Lucius says something too low for her to make out, and suddenly Draco's scampering footsteps are scampering off to the other side of the house.

Lucius is at her side in moments. "Are you all right, Cissy?" The teasing, fatherly tone he uses with Draco is gone, replaced with genuine concern.

"Where's Draco?"

"I told him we had headaches," Lucius says with a smirk. "Asked him to fetch us some tea." He kneels beside her. "What's wrong, Narcissa? Do you need a potion? A Healer?"

She shakes her head. "I—I need something from the top drawer of my dresser."

"What is it?"

She pushes herself back from the toilet and leans against the wall. "It's in a blue box."

Lucius still looks concerned, but he rises and moves back to the bedroom. She hears the scrape of the drawer being pulled back, followed by a distinct gasp. "Pregnancy tests?" he whispers as he steps back into the bathroom. "You're—you might be—are you?"

Narcissa takes the box from his hands and pulls out one of the magical pregnancy tests. It's in the form of a smooth gray stone; it's cool against her palm, but she knows that once she runs it across her stomach, the stone will heat up if it detects signs of life within her womb. "I'm not sure."

Lucius' expression is unreadable. "I don't want—"

"Mummy?" Draco's back. "I brought tea."

Nausea abated for the moment, Narcissa gets to her feet and goes back into the bedroom. "Thank you," she says, taking the teacup. "I think it's time for some breakfast in bed." She looks pointedly at Lucius, who takes the hint and announces that he'll go tell the house elves to prepare something. Squealing with glee, Draco throws himself onto the bed. "Draco," she says as she sits beside him, "you know you're a big boy."

Draco nods, looking quite proud of it.

"And your daddy and I, we love you very much. We want you to grow up to be a good Slytherin."

"I will." Draco begins to hiss like a snake, as if this will somehow prove his worth.

Narcissa still has the pregnancy stone clutched in her hand. "What would you think about having a _little_ boy around here to play with?"

Draco cocks his head. "I've never had a little boy."

"It might be a girl," Narcissa says. "But it would be someone small for you to play with—someone for you to mold into a good Slytherin, the same way Daddy and I are molding you."

Under the covers, she passes the stone across her belly and holds her breath.

"Never had someone to mold before," Draco says, and she sees the Malfoy ambition _glowing_ in his eyes.

The stone is supposed to grow warmer if there's a baby, colder if there's no baby, and she can't help but close her eyes. . . .

"Never had someone to _mold_ before," she hears Draco repeat quietly, and a new kind of nausea rolls over Narcissa as the stone changes temperature.

* * *

 _[Blindfolded Competition: Cliffhanger; the word "never"; Draco as a secondary character; "I have a headache, go away!"]_

 _[Hangman Challenge: A]_


End file.
